Survival instinct
by villalala
Summary: The world has changed and the only goal the humanity has right now is to survive. Join The Big Four as they try to find a way to end this. Zombie apocalypse AU with slightly older characters. Maybe some mentions of HiJack
1. Prologue

**A/N:** Well, I'm not going to lie and say that this is my first fanfic, because this isn't. BUT, however, this IS my first The Big Four –fic, so…yeah. Anyways, I'm having that time of my life where I'm a fan of zombie-stuff…so, here! Hope you all like it C: Some notes at the end, I wish for you to read them!

And, of course, the **disclaimer:** I do not own ROTG, HTTYD, Tangled or Brave

* * *

**Prologue, Merida's P.O.V**

It started as a normal day. They all do, don't they? But the moment I stepped into class –we had math, I remember it- I knew right away something was going on.

It had started in the morning, actually. My parents had made a fuss about something. As my mother brushed my red, curly hair (she always tried to tame my wild hair; failing miserably, of course), she spoke with my father. Something about "what they said in the news". The only word I caught was "infection". I was young, only 15 years old, and I didn't quite understand what kind of infection they were talking about this time, but something about the tone of my parents' voices made me sure that this wasn't just, yet another flu. I was about to ask about it, but then my friend, the world calls her Rapunzel (because of her long, blond hair), arrived, and I got distracted from whatever had made my parents so nervous.

I didn't get much of a break from this "what they said in the news". because my classmates were…well, talking about it. I sat down in my usual place, right corner of the class, next to Rapunzel, and overheard two boys nearby chatting. Both of us, Rapunzel and me, focused on hearing them.

"Did you hear?" the other had asked.

"Yeah pretty scary right? It's like Night of the Living Dead!" Wait what? Repeat, please? The living dead? I looked at Rapunzel, who shrugged and turned her attention back to the boys.

"Do you think we'll end up fighting for our survival with bats and guns?" As the other boy took a moment to think about how he should answer his friend, our teacher walked in.

"Class, I know you are worried about the news that arrived from across the Atlantic", oh, so it's the States' fault again, "but I assure you, there is nothing to be worried about. The airplane has been… destroyed by the military, and everything's being taken care of. So please, just move on as if this never happened."

I didn't understand. WHAT WAS GOING ON?! I needed answers, so I slipped a note to the boy sitting on my left –the same boy who had asked about bats and guns.

_What is this all about?_ He looked at the note and gave the back of his hand a laugh. He then took one hell of a while to write his answer.

_Haven't you heard? They found a few sick people from an airplane that had come from NYC to Paris –apparently they were REALLY sick. You heard the teacher; military had to take care of it. Idk what happened to the people…But they said in the news that they were acting all weird, like they weren't present in this world. Like zombies, (lol :P)_

I had to read the note three times before I let the words sink in. Sick people? Military? What. The. Fuck. And this guy has the guts to joke about zombies! I showed the note to Rapunzel, whose eyes widened to the size of plates. She, truth to be told, wasn't a big fan of this kind of stuff. Sure, she was one of those artist-types who enjoyed adventures, but when things went too wild, she just wanted to shut her ears from everything.

I on the other hand, found this rather interesting. I was born ready, so to say, so I'm that girl who looks for trouble –and finds it. Anyhow, we were studying in Munich, so Paris wasn't all that far away, so to speak. I found myself spacing out, looking out of the window, and thinking about what all this was about. That is, when the school's radio system went on and we heard the principal's calm voice.

"All students and teachers to the gym! I repeat, all-"the rest of the message wasn't hearable, because the students started to chat with each other, some in panic, some in excitement, as they exited the classroom. Me and Rapunzel went out first, eager to get to the gym; not because we wanted to hear what the principal had to say to us, but because we wanted to see our, oh, so dear friend Hiccup. He was at the same age as us, but he always had different classes as we did, so we didn't see him too often during school days –and when we did, we talked A LOT. So, of course we wanted to hear what _he_ had to say about all this. Did he know something we didn't? Did he know anything about this? We were excited to hear.

As we entered the gym, it was already pretty filled up: our class was one of the last ones to arrive. Luckily for us, in this school you don't have to stick around with your class during official and joint events. So we went to look for Hiccup. He wasn't far away from the doorway, as he was one of those persons who didn't like attention. Sounds silly, yes, but he always said that if he went to the front line, everyone'd stare at him. Maybe it was just his imagination, maybe not, but whatever.

"Hiccup!" I called for him to get his attention. He turned to where he had heard my voice, and immediately smiled as he saw me and Rapunzel.

"Hey! Do you know what this is about?"

"Ah, but that's what we were going to ask you!" Rapunzel sighed. I was curious and I sighed with her. Hiccup looked slightly disappointed.

Our principal, an old lady (who looked surprisingly good to be over 50), walked to the front and tapped the mic a couple of times to test if it was on and to get our attention from chatting with friends to her.

"Dear students and teachers. This morning we heard awful news from Berlin. An airplane from New York City to Paris, had infected people in it. What you didn't know is that after the military had taken care of the plane and secluded the passengers, they informed every public place –schools, libraries, everything- to inform the citizens when they get new information.

This is now an international issue. The States, along with Southern and Western Europe, are now taking this to a whole new level. Military and police from the US, France, England and Germany, are making examinations in public places. They are also advising other countries such as Canada, Spain and Italy, to look after the situation."

At this point of her "speech", the students grew nervous. Everyone was looking at their friends, pure worry and fear all across their faces. Some even had their phones on their hands, updating this new info to Facebook or calling their parents and other friends in other schools, and asking them if they knew about this already. I think I even saw one girl from a lower class crying. From the corner of my eye I saw Hiccup, who was nervously biting his fingernails. The principal raised her hand to get the students back to listening her.

"We are now shutting down the school until further notice. Go to your homes." And just like that, she walked away from the mic. We were all silent for a moment, letting the words of the principal reach our brain. I felt anger grow inside me. What? That's it? "Go to your homes?" I couldn't believe it. She didn't say anything…encouraging. Nothing like "don't worry" or "it'll be alright" this is just temporary. Nothing.

Turns out that at the time, she was way too shocked to say anything that would have made us feel better.

* * *

**Jack's P.O.V**

Damn.

Damn, damn, damn.

Damn it all!

Basically that was what ran through my head as I ran from the airport.

I had seen the look in that man's face.

He wasn't here. Not anymore, not mentally, for that is.

Oh yeah. Maybe I should tell what I'm talking about.

I'm Jack, I live in the USA. Or, rather, I lived. I traveled all the way from Oklahoma City to New York to fly to Paris to see my aunt. My, ah, so fucking annoying aunt, who continuously asked about my love life, as if it had something to do with her. What I didn't know was that it wasn't my aunt I was about to be worried about for a long, long time.

The airport was a total disaster, as always. There were people all over the places, going where ever they were going. Now, it's not like I don't like to be around people. No, I love the sounds of footsteps around me, the sound of people rushing here and there. But today was not my best day, and I was in a bad mood. All I wanted to do is to call the aunt and cancel everything. Hell, did I ever want to do so. But I knew I couldn't do so; we didn't see that often, and she would be furious if I called and told her I wasn't coming.

But, jeez, a 16 year old teenager traveling all the way from the States to Europe doesn't sound too easy, especially when you have your little sister with you. She's dear to me, yes of course she is, but as every kid her age, she asks too many questions and runs off to there and there whenever she has the chance. We were almost late from our flight because she ran off to a "celebrity" she thought she saw.

I wish I hadn't hurried over to her so that we would make it to the plane on time. I wish I could go back in time and tell her that she could have all the time in the world to run around the airport, as long as we didn't have to go to the plane. I wish I could still hear her laugh as I caught her and told her to keep up with me –she wasn't supposed to run off like that. I miss her so, so much my chest hurts.

* * *

The flight was terrible. The food was terrible; the flight attendants were giving my sister all their attention and acting as if they couldn't even see me. I didn't mind, though, I had a good view from the window, to the clouds. I like clouds. They take my mind off tedious things. I wish I could fly –without having to sit in a fucking plane where the staff is rude to teenagers with white hair (yup, you hear me, my hair is white).

Halfway the flight something caught my attention. The man sitting in front of me, next to the exit, was acting a bit…weird. He looked nervously around him, to his sides and to the back –every now and then he even got eye contact with me. At some points he looked at his wrist, which was odd, since he didn't seem to have a watch. After 30 minutes of behaving oddly, the man stopped an air hostess and whispered something to her. I couldn't hear what it was, as just then my sister needed my attention to some book of hers. As my eyes went from the child's book back to the man, the air hostess was already gone –she seemed to head towards the cockpit. And oh boy was the man sweating! As he stood up to take his bag from the locker above, I saw the spots of sweat on his armpits, back and chest area. His blue blouse was filled with darker spots.

The man was so pale. I didn't understand it. Was he feeling sick? Is that why the air hostess had gone to see the captain? Would we have to take an extra landing as soon as possible to get this man some help? The man looked at me, straight into my blue eyes, and I swear to God he, for a moment, looked like he could eat me. But when he sat down as if nothing had ever happened, I put it on my imagination.

We landed on Paris a few hours later. We got out and the first thing I saw was the police. I panicked a little. What was it? Had there been a terrorist in our flight? I automatically thought about the man who had sat in front of me, who had been acting so strange. Was this about him?

As I took my sister to get our suitcases, a young police officer stopped me. He told me that every suitcase was still in the plane and that they weren't going to be out for a while. Also he advised me to stay nearby; the police were about to start an "investigation", as he called it.

Turns out it was anything but an investigation.

The policemen scanned through everyone who got out of that flight. And by "they scanned" I mean that they literally rolled everyone's sleeves up to their elbows, looked carefully at necks, legs, anything where they could see bare skin. I'll never forget my sister's face as a chubby officer looked at her, lifted her chin so he could see her neck, put her hair up to see if there was anything on the back of her neck. She looked so scared. Like a toy that had a spirit inside it, a toy that was being brutally used by kids who play harsh games with their toys.

* * *

The next hours are such a blur in my memory. I remember the screams as one of the policemen yelled something to the other, as they all –there were over ten of them- rushed to the man with blue blouse. My sister clinging onto me like her life depended on it. The military cars I saw as I looked through the glass door.

Then the panic started. I don't know how and who started it, but it started. First a lady with long, dark hair, ran to the glass door, trying to get it open (they were locked, as the police and military had decided not to let anyone get in or out). Then I heard a gunshot. People were running, shouting, police trying to stop them. Little kids crying.

Then someone knocked me over, and the last thing I remember was my sister calling my name, before everything went black.

* * *

As I woke up, I had this throbbing pain in the right side of my head. I slowly rose from the floor, trying to look around as my vision went in and out. Oh man, my head hurt!

The place was a mess. The glass door was broken, an obvious mark that people had forced it to break to get out. The military cars were gone, as were the police ones. I don't know why, but I actually recall myself looking at the "departures"-board. Cancelled, every single flight was cancelled.

Then I remembered my sister. She wasn't there anymore. As panic took control, I stood up to my feet, not caring about the pain. The only thought that ran around in my mind was to find my sister. There were several people lying on the floor, some of them obviously dead. I didn't know if the rest of the people were dead or alive, and I didn't care to check. I yelled for my sister. Nothing. I yelled again.

It wasn't my sister who answered me. Oh no, it totally wasn't my sister. What answered me sounded like a mix of a dog and a man with a killer hangover? The voice didn't come from nearby, but it was clear. Clear enough for me to realize it was an inhuman sound.

I don't know what got into me, but I started walking towards the sound. It sounded like coming from the hall that leads to the rest rooms. The lights were darker than on the main hallway, so at first it was hard for me to identify the creature that was on its knees, doing something that looked like stroking a body that was on the floor. I went closer and closer, until I finally saw him, standing a few meters away.

The man in the blue blouse. As he saw me, he made that weird noise again. And yet again, he looked like he would eat me.

But he didn't. Because he was already eating someone else.

* * *

**~A week later~**

"…_The International Health Center has now put up the following order:_

'_Do not, under any circumstances, leave your house. Stay inside._

_Make sure you check those who come from outdoors._

_If anyone gets infected, you must make sure you keep them isolated. You have two options: Either you remove the bitten part of the body or shoot them in the head. Head only._

_Keeps animals away from human beings and make sure they don't bite anyone. If necessary, kill them._

_Everyone takes care of themselves and themselves only. This isn't a place to let feelings take control.'_

_And that is everything new we have to tell you tonight! We'll keep you updated about this situation._

_Stay safe!"_

* * *

**A/N:** Eh, one long prologue…sorry about that. So, as you could tell, Jack isn't with the others yet, but be patient! They will get together.

So yeah, story takes place in Europe, because I can't write about the States, not knowing anything about the landscapes etc. Please understand, I live in Europe myself, so….But yeah lmao I wasn't sure if I should write München or Münich, so correct me if I'm wrong! Also, I'm not a native speaker of English, so if you spot mistakes, don't make a huge number out of it, please. Hope you enjoyed, leave a review to tell me what you think (as if anyone reads this. But if you do…ilysm)!

**EDIT: **Spelling checked and corrected, thank you to my beta **God's-Perfect-Sandwich**


	2. Chapter 1

******A/N:** I was struggling with deciding how much time has passed after the prologue, but yeah…Also I had trouble deciding wheter I should put Toothless in this story or not, but seriously tho, Hiccup isn't Hiccup without Toothless, so yeah :P

* * *

_**Chapter 1 – Looking for a place to stay in**_

**3 years later**

**Summer, Hiccup's P.O.V**

I tensed my muscles as I pulled back the string of my bow. _Steady now, Hiccup_, I kept telling myself when I waited for the rabbit to come back to the road, to the front of the car I was hiding behind. Finally, after way too many minutes of waiting, the rabbit approached. Its fur was shining in the late afternoon sunlight, ears up, mind prepared to run for its dear life. It stopped itself from good three meters away from my hiding spot. I had placed myself behind the fore of the car, peeking, trying to find a good moment to send an arrow to its way. _Now!_, my mind yelled. I slowly got up, putting my arm on the engine bonnet, pulling the string a little bit more, and then-

"Fuck!" I yelled as the arrow landed only a few millimeters away from the rabbit's paws, scaring it off. I didn't even have time to blink before the rabbit was far gone, running back to the forest nearby. I stood to my feet and cursed my luck –this isn't the first time I had miserably failed to get our group food. I put my bow to rest on my back, walking to where the arrow waited for me –obviously laughing at my bad attempt of trying to get the rabbit. I picked it up and put it with the others. _Only 10 arrows left…_I pointed out to myself. Damn, that isn't much.

Walking back to the camp –a little cellar we found that had an unlocked door- was always a pain in my ass. Whenever it was my turn to hunt, I wondered too far and then complained about the long way back. Merida always told me that she could always take care of the hunting if walking was too painful for me –taking my leg into account.

You see, a year ago we were attacked. Our group –also known as me, Merida and Rapunzel- didn't have a safe place to stay, so we were kind of wondering from here to there. Hell, we didn't even know where exactly we were _supposed_ to go. The world was a mess, and whenever we met people –actual, breathing people- we asked if they knew what to do. But mostly the answer was "We just try not to get killed." So, the three of us had just been walking the way between France and Germany, unsure when, and _if_, this would end.

The nights were the most terrible parts of the day. We only had one flashlight, which wasn't even working properly, and whenever we heard a noise, even the tiniest one, we would all tense up, sweating and nervous. Usually it was just our imagination that created the dark silhouettes to the shadows, causing us to panic. This situation was making us all see things that weren't really there –or, they were _there_, but that close that we'd be attacked.

But that one night, the night I'll remember for the rest of my life, had been different. It wasn't our imagination that had made the creatures come from that house. It was terrible. There had been a whole family: a man, a woman and two children, aged around 10 and 15. They didn't seem to have any bite marks on them, so I assumed they had died from hunger or something…natural like that. But still, they had been dead, and a huge danger to us.

We had tried to stay quiet, we really had. We had tried not to draw any attention, and the zombies weren't that close to us, so we had thought that we still had a chance to get away without a fight. Oh, how wrong we were. They had seen us, smelled us, whatever had made them turn their full attention to us.

Rapunzel had been the first one to act. She had drawn her gun from where she usually kept it, on her back, between her jeans and belt, and had shot down the older one of the kids. One down, but I hadn't been so happy about it.

"You're going to draw attention with all that noise!" I had screamed, my voice filled with fear as I had been so sure that the gunshot would bring more of the walkers to us.

"I think we already have the audience's full attention!" she had answered me, trying to keep her voice calm. But, she had listened to me, so she put her gun away and took out her bow instead. I always thanked God from Merida's ability of making decent bows –all she needed was some wood and a string. So, she made bows to all of us. Arrows we usually found from left overs people had left behind, or then Merida made her own versions: not as sharp and deadly, but definitely able to kill small animals and slow down attackers.

We were almost out of good luck, I could sense it. For months we had had enough luck to escape walkers, no matter the situation. For months there was always a way: the zombies were attracted to or by something else or then another group came from somewhere and saved us. Things like that. But now, that we had almost been cornered to stand between a bunch of cars filled with rust and three zombies, it had seemed so sure that something bad was about to happen. Our roll with luck had come to an end.

Merida and I had taken down the woman. I had shot her in the leg to make her fall, and then Merida had made the final strike. This was our normal way to do it when a zombie would come too close to risk anything with making a single shot to the head. Rapunzel had been having a good day, her arms steady as a tree, I had seen no shaking what so ever. She had killed the man and the other kid. And just as our backs had hit a car as a mark of a dead end, the family was dead. _Dead_ Dead. But it wasn't over yet, unlike we had thought. I had heard a noise coming from the car that was upside down behind us. And then, I just had felt this massive pain in my left ankle. A pain so terrible it felt like a thousand needles would have been put through my ankle, causing a burning feeling.

I then had heard a loud crack as Merida had stomped to the walker's head –that's one way to end one's life. I remember being beyond shocked. What just happened? I had turned around and seen a zombie, half way through the driver's seat window. It had…bit me? I had slowly lifted the leg of my jeans up. Yup, there it was.

"Oh my God! Oh my God! Hiccup, your leg!" Rapunzel had been just as shocked as I was. She had looked at Merida, who also had wide eyes, fear in them.

"Shit! Shit, shit, shit!" Merida didn't exactly know what to say. She had started walking in circles. "So, okay, okay, everyone just calm down, we'll figure this out!" I, on the other hand, had walked to the four zombies we had killed, collecting our arrows –never waste your weapons-, acting like a robot. My thoughts had been running in circles.

"We have two days, right? Two days before he…before he…" Rapunzel never finished her sentence, as we had all known what would happen after two days: I'd turn. Into one of _them_. I had sat down to the road and looked at the two girls.

"We have to cut if off." I couldn't believe I said it. Just a thought of a saw or an axe getting through my bone made me shiver –but what other choices did I have? None.

* * *

I shivered at the memory. It had been an awful week –or two, to be specific. My leg never got inflamed, thank God for that, but it had been a fight for life and death to get me something that would replace my foot from almost all the way from my knee. It wasn't easy, but we had managed well enough.

As I walked down an alley, I heard a loud meow from my left. A head peeked from a dumpster.

"Toothless! I told you to stay with the others!" I told the cat, even though I knew very well that Toothless, my black cat with the most amazing color of green in his eyes, wasn't comfortable without me around. He was almost always right on my heels.

The cat gave me another loud meow, as a protest of me trying to tell him to stay still. It was impossible; he was a cat after all! I laughed. "So, found anything good from…there?" I asked as I gave the dumpster a questionable look. Toothless jumped out of the dumpster and I swear to God he shook his head. Or was it just my imagination?

I bent down to scratch him behind his ears, I knew he liked it. "Yeah, me neither", I told him, a slight hint of sadness in my voice. Fuck, this was going to be some long night. We'd all have to go to sleep without food.

"Step away from the cat!" Came an unfamiliar voice from the direction I was coming from. I heard footsteps. The first thing I saw was a baseball bat. Now what?

* * *

**Rapunzel's P.O.V**

"Shouldn't he be back by now?" I asked my red haired friend as I looked out of the smallest window I've ever seen. "It's getting dark." It sure was, the sun was getting ready to go down and let the moon take care of the night time.

"He has probably just wondered too far away again, I'm sure he'll manage. He has a flashlight." Merida answered me, not lifting her eyes from the jar she had just found. "Do you think this is good?" She gave me the jar that said "jam" on its label.

"Don't think so. The flashlight isn't working all that well, mind you", I pointed out and put the jar aside.

"He'll manage." _I know that_ is what I wanted to say, but I kept quiet. Ever since Hiccup had lost his leg, I noticed that the mother hen –side of me had taken control. I was worried about our friend, who was already clumsy enough with two legs. How exactly do you think he'll manage with only one?

I sighed and took another l look out of the window. I was so glad it was summer and the nights were very short. Everything felt safer in the daylight when you could actually see where you were going.

Damn, I missed those days when we would go and take trips to the lakes with our summer camp class. I missed the days when you didn't have to worry about if you have to kill someone you aren't sure about if they're walkers or just normal people trying to rob you.

I missed everything, basically.

* * *

**Hiccup's P.O.V**

The stranger was keeping his bat ready, ready to hit. I wasn't really sure if it was me or Toothless who had to be worried about getting himself killed. Either way, I slowly took my bow and arrow and made it very clear to the guy before me that I wasn't as weak as I may have looked like.

"Step away from the cat", the stranger told me. He was a young man, around 20 years old. He was wearing a blue hoodie and jeans, but no shoes. Weird. His hair was white, which made him look kind of cool. Wait, what was I thinking?

"Why should I take orders from a guy I don't even know?" I asked maybe a bit too loudly.

"It might be infected!" The other answered me, looking at me as if I was some kind of idiot.

"He isn't. He's my cat, and he is not infected." I drew the string back, tensing myself, preparing for the weird man to attack me if he wasn't happy with my answer. But, instead of doing so, he just laughed a bit and lowered his bat to his side.

"Why didn't you say so, kid?" Who was he calling a kid? I was only a year or two younger than him!

"Who are you?" I asked him, making myself calm down. As Toothless noted that the most dangerous part was now over, he calmed down also.

"Jack. I come from France." France, huh? Pretty long way as we were now in Southern Germany.

"You lived there?" I found myself asking. _Wow, way to go, Hiccup. Ask personal questions as if he was your new best friend._

"No, I….lived in the States. I came here with my sister."

"Why didn't you stay in the States, then? Why are you here, in Europe?" Was that sadness I saw flashing in his eyes?

"I was in the plane." There was a long silence between us. I dropped my arrow from pure shock, repeating what I just heard in my head. He had been there? Oh my God.

"Is your sister with you?" I asked as I tried to look behind him to see if there was anyone there. The only thing I saw was darkness. This Jack looked at me, with a rather serious face.

"Look, all I need is a place to stay over the night. I saw you, hunting down that rabbit and thought that maybe you would…you know…"

"Offer you to come with me after you almost killed my cat?" I finished his sentence for him. Maybe I was being a little bit too hard on the guy, but I didn't fully trust him. After all, he had been on the plane. Jack smiled weakly.

"I just thought that maybe that cat was just a wild cat you wanted to pat a little", he looked straight at my eyes, "since you seem to love animals so much that you couldn't even kill the rabbit."

"Haha, funny. So, are you alone or not?"

"Alone." I furrowed my eyebrows a bit. Of course! How stupid I was to automatically think that his sister was still with him.

"Fine, but no tricks, I swear to God if you try anything, I'll kill you." Jack looked at my bow.

"Sounds fair enough."

* * *

"You know, you never told me your name, kid."

"I'm not a kid. Hiccup is my name." Jack gave a rather loud snort, which earned him an angry glare from me. "What?"

"Nothing, it's just such a…unusual name, Hiccup." The way he said my name made me want to hit his pretty face. My name is my name, deal with it, damn!

We were making our way to my friends, who were probably worried sick as the sun was setting down and I was obviously late. Jack had asked me all kind of questions, also including a question about my leg.

"Must've been hard", he had said as I told him what happened. I asked him about the plane, as he obviously was the only one at that right moment who could tell me what actually had happened. But, of course, he only knew about the things that happened in the airport –nothing about what had caused it.

"How old are you, kid?" He asked me, cutting off my train of thoughts.

"I'm not a kid and I'm 18." Jack looked at me, obviously trying to hold back yet another laugh. "18? You look much younger."

"What about you?" Jack grinned.

"19. Not bad huh, we're at the same age!" Yeah, like that would matter in any way.

Suddenly, Toothless gave a loud hiss, his tail all thick. I looked at him and stopped right there.

"What's wrong?" Jack had stopped too, looking at where Toothless was looking.

"Probably walkers." He said, as if it was nothing. I took my bow, ready to get ready for an attack, but Jack stopped me by putting his hand on top of mine. Wow, his hand was so cold.

"It's fine." What was this guy talking about, Fine? Nothing was fine if there was a possibility of zombies being nearby!

"Eh, no you just said that there may be zombies around the corner! How is that fine?" I whispered angrily, not raising my voice, afraid that whatever was making Toothless nervous, would hear me nagging at my company. Jack didn't seem to be listening, though, dragging me along him to keep walking towards the cellar. I heard loud noises from an alley that joined to the one we were walking. As we came to face a corner, Jack put his hand on top of my head as a sign to get down. We both hid to the corner as Jack peeked to the other side. He looked back at me, nodding his head. Okay, so there was a zombie. Maybe more than one.

Without a word, Jack took my bow and arrow I had been holding in my hands this whole time, stood up, walked to the start of the alley the noise was coming from, and tensed his arms. He looked like a statue, like those one's you see in Greek museums, like the statues that represent old Greek gods. Within an instant, the arrow was sent to its target, and I heard a quiet sound as the arrow obviously hit the target. Jack walked to me, helped me up and gave back my bow.

"You alright, kid?"

"Well, let's see. I was just hiding for five minutes and nothing really happened, so yeah, I think I'm good." Jack smiled at my tone. Truth to be told, my leg was starting to hurt. It was the walking that caused it. "And I'm not a kid, mind you." I walked to the dead walker and took back what was mine, aka the arrow.

"You collect those or what?"

"Don't waste arrows. You might need them afterwards."

"Smart." I glanced at him. Did this guy have nothing but his bat? Me, Merida and Rapunzel all had our bows and pistols, and whenever needed, we grabbed a board or something. How on Earth had this guy lived this long?

"Let's keep going." I said, and pointed to the direction we were heading to. "The others aren't that far away."

* * *

**Jack's P.O.V**

"You did what exactly?!" I heard the redhead whisper angrily at the boy with freckles I had met not so long ago. They –the three of them, Hiccup, redhead and a blonde girl- were standing in a circle few meters away from me. They were discussing about wheter or not I should stay with their group. The girls hadn't looked too happy about Hiccup bringing a guest.

"Merida! He's alone –or at least so he said- and needs a place to sleep in!" Hiccup tried. This Merida glanced over her shoulder at me, before turning back to the group.

"But-"

"He's staying." The third one of them, the blonde girl, said. Ah, thank God someone had a heart! Hiccup and Merida seemed to have an issue with trusting me, as they now all knew about my past in the plane.

After a while of talking, Hiccup came to me. He looked a bit nervous, and I found it oddly cute.

"You can stay. And, um, Rapunzel is trying to talk Merida over to let you stay in our group. As in for staying for a longer time." So, was this freckles-face trying to tell me that they were taking me into the group? I felt happy as I realized that he was indeed trying to tell me that.

"Cool."

"But, you must tell us everything you know about the infections, everything you have been through for these years. Everything."

"So you could trust me?"

"Yeah."

"I think I can do that."

* * *

**EDIT:** Spelling checked and corrected, thank you to my beta **God's-Perfect-Sandwich**


	3. Chapter 2

_**Chapter 2 – Breaking in to the pharmacy**_

**Rapunzel's P.O.V**

"Jack."

Silence.

"Jack!"

Jack lifted his eyes from the map he was studying. He was focused on something with all of his might, his whole being having changed; turning from the funny one to the responsible one, almost as though he had taken on the role of a father. It was unnecessary though, as we all were almost the same age, Jack being only a year older than the rest of us.

"What?" Jack asked when he noticed that I was looking at him.

"I found these. Here." I gave him a pair of shoes I had found from the house we were currently searching. Our group had walked some kilometers from our little "camp" to a suburb that no longer had any residents in it. Maybe they had died, maybe they had fled, but they sure had left behind some great supplies, including the shoes I was offering to Jack. They were regular, black fabric shoes. The shoelaces where in pretty good condition and I was sure they'd last at least until it started to snow.

Jack looked at the shoes, raised his left eyebrow as if I'd be stupid, giving him shoes, but he took them to himself, asking me why I was giving them to him.

"Well, it's been five days since you came to our group, and I've never seen you wear anything on your feet."

"So what?" he asked in a skeptical tone.

"It's a risk, Jack", I sighed. "What if you step onto glass? That wouldn't be so great, would it?"

Jack sat down to a bench that was _conveniently_ there, put the shoes on and looked at them for a couple of seconds. "Thanks, Blondie." I rolled my eyes, telling him that I had told him not to call me that. Jack just laughed it off, returning to his map. There seemed to be a reason he was so focused on drawing notes and routes on it, so I let him be.

On the night Hiccup had returned with Jack, Jack had told us everything about the flight and what happened at the airport, and he also had shared with us some information we didn't know about: there was a possibility there could be a man in Moscow that, perhaps, knew a way to put a stop to the infection.

"It wouldn't save the already infected people", he had mumbled, "but it would stop the virus from spreading."

"What about the already infected people? They'd need to be killed, right?" Merida had asked, obviously interested in the news Jack was telling. Out of all of us, she was most likely the one that was having the hardest time: she had had a huge family, each member dear to her, and when the evacuation had started in our home town, she was the only one that hadn't gotten to get to her family –they had already been gone.

"Yes, we would have to. That way life can return to normal." I had shaken my head.

"Life will never be the same."

"Well, at least it'd be a life without zombies." Hiccup had smiled, stroking Toothless' fur, telling us that it sounded nice –and we couldn't disagree.

"_Rapunzel?"_ My thoughts were disturbed when I heard Merida's voice from the walkie-talkie that was resting on my belt. We had had them for months now, giving us the possibility to talk to each other no matter where we were –usually Merida and I talked to Hiccup while he was hunting, to make him feel safe (that's because I had been so worried the day Hiccup was running late: he had forgotten to take his walkie-talkie with him.)

"Yes, Merida?"

"_We found the pharmacy."_ I smiled. Thank God. We had agreed that Merida and Hiccup would go to the city and look for stores that would help us getting our stocks (aka two back packs plus pockets) filled, for example food stores and a pharmacy. Along with food, medicine was also very important to have around, just in case.

"Did you find a way to get in?" Jack asked. He had heard Merida's voice and had put the map aside.

"_Well, yeah…"_

"But?"

"_But we can't exactly get in"_, Hiccup said from the other end. _"The back door is locked, and there's an extra door blocking the main door. A safety system."_

Jack took the radiotelephone from me to hold it closer to his own mouth. "What about a key? Anything?"

"_Trust me, Jack, we have been looking everywhere to find a key that would unlock the doors, but we've found absolutely nothing at all."_

"_I think we could get in through the door that's on the front, but the security door was pretty heavy to lift…"_ our friend with red hair said.

"And you want me to come over because Hiccup is way too weak to lift it?" Jack gave a chuckle. And there he was, I thought, the Jack "Fun" Overland, back from the shut-up-I'm-looking-at-this-map –form he had had for over an hour now.

"We'll come there. Where is it?" I took the map to my hands and waited for directions.

"_Just walk to the west from the suburb, to the city. We'll be waiting for you on the main road."_

* * *

We were walking in silence, both of us ready for anything to come across us. We were already in the city, but we didn't see any signs of Hiccup and Merida. The pharmacy was most likely in the heart of the city.

Suddenly Jack opened his mouth, nearly scaring me to death as I was so deep in my thoughts.

"Why did you stood on my side back then?"

"What?" I looked up at him. "You mean the night you arrived?"

"Yeah. When Hic and Merida were having some problems with trusting me. Why did you trust me, a stranger?"

"'Hic'? You have a nickname for him already? Not even me or Merida use nicknames for him." Jack just looked at me from the corner of his eye.

"Just answer the question, Rapunzel."

"I didn't trust you. But I figured that you'd be useful."

"Useful?"

"Yeah. You have a bat, so you could be a huge help in a combat that would happen with a short distance."

"That's all?"

I turned my eyes away from him, looking back at the road wondering between huge buildings that were now empty from people. Sure, it had been an obvious possibility that Jack's bat (we also gave him the spare pistol we had) would be a great weapon in fights. But it wasn't the only reason.

"Well, I also felt bad for you. Couldn't just leave you behind." Jack sneered.

"If you mean the fact my sister is missing, it doesn't affect my-"

"I didn't mean that, Jack." I shook my head a bit, just enough for Jack to notice it. "It was because I know that when you're alone in this world, you easily get killed. You need a group to look after you, to make your sanity keep at normal level."

"I survived three years on my own, thank you." Jack didn't seem to be mad at me or anything, but I still apologized, twirling a lock of my hair around my finger. "It's nothing", he said to me, and then stopped om his heels as he looked down at a black cat that had appeared in front of us, sitting on our way and staring at us.

"Toothless!" I bent down to the cat, scrathing it a bit and then got back up. "We must be close to the pharmacy." Toothless have a loud meow and then walked to a road that was going to the right from the main road. We followed him, ending up to stand before a small building that said "Apotheke" on it. Pharmacy.

"Ah, Toothless found you!" Hiccup called, walking to us. "We didn't find a key, but anyways, the back door is open now." I sighed in relief. Good news, finally.

"What kind of training techniques you use to that cat? He literally lead us here!" Jack asked, still confused from the fact that Toothless had obviously been sent to the main road to wait for us instead. Hiccup laughed.

"You'd be surprised about what other things he can do!"

"Sorry to interrupt your flirting and all, but how about we get inside?" Merida shouted to us. We wasted no time, walking from the main door to the corner, then turned to the right. There was a small yard back there, no grass or plants or anything of course, but it was something you could call a yard. There were also two dumpsters, both half empty (those who had passed through this city had probably taken some stuff from there), and an alley that lead to God-knows-where. We walked in from the back door, and I let out a loud "wow".

The place was full of medicines and other supplies. Since it looked like no one had found a key (maybe the owner had taken it with them when they had fled?), no one had robbed the place. I walked straight to the shelves, taking a good look at some medicine pots. I'm the "doctor" of our group, so my friends let me be. Merida only gave me her back pack, asking me to fill it with everything I felt necessary to take with us. I obeyed, takings as many different medicines and other supplies as I could.

"Hey guys, there's a door back here!" Jack shouted. Toothless was there with him, trying to fight his way through from the gap that was between the door and floor. Merida went there first, taking a good look at the door.

"Staff", she read out loud. "Weird that we didn't notice this, right, Hiccup?"

"Well, we didn't even properly get inside since we know nothing about medicines." Hiccup walked to them and picked his cat up, trying the door. "It's locked." I joined them, asking if Merida and Hiccup could use the same method as they had used with the back door.

"Sure. Here, let me." Merida took out a hairclip from her pocket and worked with the lock for a few seconds before we heard a click. "There."

As the door was opened by our Scottish redhead, we all let out a loud gasp. I think I even screamed. Hiccup put his hand in front of his nose while holding Toothless with his other hand, obviously disgusted by the smell that was coming from the body that was sitting on a black chair in the room. Toothless tried his best to break free from Hiccup's hold, to either run off or to the body, I couldn't tell.

"Oh my god…" I let my eyes scan the body. A male, about 50 years old. By the smell I judged that he had been there for a while now but, however, not for too long because the body hadn't started to rot yet. Merida stepped in, getting next to the body. With a little hesitation, she put her hand to the body's shoulder, and grabbing the knife that was in the dead man's head with the other, and pulled the knife out. The sound was indescribably disgusting. I felt like throwing up.

"Why…What did you do that for?" Jack asked, almost shouted. Merida just looked at the knife she was holding, then putting it to the table that was next to the wall.

"We couldn't just leave him like that."

"He…he killed himself." Hiccup was the next one to step into the room. He stared at the body for some brief seconds before turning his head away. "He probably has the key, too." I shook my head, this was terrible. Poor guy. It was terrible what people did to themselves and sometimes even to their family when they didn't want to turn into walkers. Hiccup and Merida were searching the room, and Jack joined them. He opened a cabinet that was on the other side of the room, and took out a rifle. "Why the fuck does a pharmacist have a rifle in their cabinet?" He asked, turning the rifle around in his hands. "Especially when it's not working."

"Why not?" Hiccup had walked next to Jack, looking at the rifle. "Doesn't it have bullets?"

"No, and also the trigger is broken." He handed the rifle to Hiccup so he could see that the trigger was literally gone. I leaned to the doorway.

"Of course, because getting a rifle would have been too awesome." Jack nodded and sighed. Yes, it'd had been way too great to get new, powerful weapons.

"I didn't find anything useful. The man kept nothing but pictures of his family in here", Merida said as he walked to the boys. I was shocked.

"What do you think happened to his family?"

"We don't have to think about that." I looked at my feet. Perhaps Merida was right, but I couldn't help but think about it. The way the world treated people these days…anything could have happened to them. Hunger, walkers or other people who were trying to rob them and, accidently or in purpose, ended up killing them.

* * *

**Jack's P.O.V**

The mood between all of us had been depressed ever since we discovered the body, and none of us had really said anything after Rapunzel had wondered what had happened to the man's family. She had returned to collecting the pots in silence and the rest of us had sat behind the counter.

"We should take a look at the city when we're finished here." Hiccup had gotten up to his feet, looking out of the window, and the way he said it made me unsure about if he was talking to us or just to himself. "Maybe we could find a food store or something?" He turned his gaze from the almost ghost-like town to me and Merida who were still sitting on the floor behind the counter. Merida tsked.

"You do understand that the possibility of getting food from a food store right now is quite small, right?"

"I do." Hiccup blinked several times, and to me it almost looked like he was keeping tears from falling to his face. I understood how he felt, we were dangerously close to running out of food. The three of them had had only a small amount of food when I had arrived to them, and now that there was four of us eating…I sighed, shaking my head in disapproval. To me it felt like I was stealing their food from them. Rapunzel had told me that it was okay, the food was going to last for us all, but still my mind kept telling me that I was a burden on their shoulders when it came to food.

I shall do my very best to help them get food, I had told myself, and so, whenever Hiccup went hunting, I went to keep him company, telling him that two pairs of eyes saw better than just one, helping him hunt down small animals like rabbits and foxes and then helping him carry the prey back to the camp –even tho the amount of animals we usually got didn't have to need for two people to carry them. Sometimes we even were lucky enough to see and hunt down deers: they usually kept hiding in the forests -and we had all agreed not to go there because there was always a possibility to get lost- but when they came near to the roads or so, we both did your very best to get them. The deers often were in herds, so it wasn't that hard as it might sound like, especially now that Merida had made me a bow to help me do silent kills.

The brunette boy watched his cat jump to the counter he was standing next to. Toothless was meowing to get attention from the boy, making him smile warmly. When I had met Hiccup, talking to the cat, I had been so sure that it was a wild cat: you didn't see that many pets around people anymore. And when it turned out that the cat was Hiccup's, my brain had went to the next stage: maybe the cat was someone else's, and he had just found him recently? I was wrong again, Hiccup had told me, saying that Toothless had been with him before the shit hit the fan with the infections. I must say, I admired the two. There was obviously a bond between them, Toothless being on Hiccup's heels all the time and Hiccup taking a good care of his cat: whenever we found food, Hiccup made sure that the cat ate more from his piece of food than he did. It was something you don't see every day in this kind of a world, not anymore. Sometimes people keep all the food to themselves, not even giving it to other people that were starving, but these three…They were all different from those selfish bastards. I smiled as I looked at them.

Rapunzel had a big heart, and she was willing to help everyone. Maybe she was a bit naive, but the fact that she took a good care of her group was more important than anything. Her green eyes and long, blond hair made her look so kind and caring. She usually had the hair on a neat plaid, giving everyone the expression that she was a nurse of some kind –and she was, and I often thought how would we manage without her ability to heal almost everything, also at the time like this. Her smile was something we needed a lot, it could have moved mountains and make rocks turn into birds that could take off to the sky, singing beautiful songs as they did.

Merida, on the other hand, was nothing like Rapunzel, but yet so alike. Her red, very curly hair was just like her personality: wild and stubborn, even though she kept her hair on a ponytail, to stop it from coming to the way of her sight. She was the most tomboyish girl I had ever met, but she also was a great fighter. Her personality and fighting skills could break stone walls, and whenever the times were rough, if we were having hard time to keep going in this kind of a world, her encouraging words gave us the strenght to continue. She might have been stubborn, but she was also, just like Rapunzel, caring and ready to do anything for the sake of our group. Also, her temper was one of a kind. It had taken me a lot of effort to gain her trust, but eventually we had gotten to the point where she counted me as a member of this small group, making me feel safe in some kind of a way. Merida saw me staring at her as I thought about her and her tempered ways to say things, and smiled, giving me a piece of old chocolate she said she had found from the floor.

"You look hungry, Jack." She grinned, and so did I, taking the chocolate from her.

"Heh, thanks." Obviously I didn't actually eat the chocolate as it was already so old that I would have gotten sick if I ate it, but the humor me and Merida used was always like this.

And then, of course, there was the brunette that was the first boy at my age I had seen in months. We had met in that alley, and I thanked God that I had seen him hunting that day. From his looks I had judged that he wasn't alone, and I had followed him, studying his being to make sure he wouldn't kill me if I approached him. Well, he hadn't exactly killed me, but it hadn't been that far.

Hiccup looked…well, silly, so to say. He was often biting his lower lip, making him look like a 10 year old with all the freckles he had all over his face. He was also clumsy, but had a great personality: he was smart, kind and loving, and loved to use sarcasm, it seemed. Hiccup and I often made the girls laugh with our stupid jokes or silly fights. It was true what they've always said about laughing giving you "more life". Whenever I long after my sister, I also think about how she would probably have liked Hiccup.

"Guys, there's someone there." Hiccup's voice suddenly dragged me back to Earth, making me blink in confusion.

"What?" I stood up to stand next to him, looking out of the window. "Jesus…" Hiccup was right, there was someone out there. It was a man, riding a horse. He was coming from the opposite direction where we had, looking around as he rode down the main road while holding the reins of the horse in his left hand, resting the right one on his side. The first thing I really noted was the machine gun he had on his shoulder. Shit.

"Someone close the door", I snapped. We wouldn't know if the man was just passing by or was he looking for the next victim of his robbery. Rapunzel was quick to shut the door as she had heard Hiccup's words about the stranger outside. Merida and she joined us to look out of the window, the level of thei voice going down to be just a whisper.

"Do you think he'll stay?" Merida asked, keeping an eye out for the man. She was nervous, I could tell; her arm was touching mine and I felt the shaking.

"I don't know. Better if he doesn't know we're here", I answered her, placing a hand on top of her and Hiccup's heads, making them go down to the floor. Rapunzel followed us to peek behind the windowsill. The man had stopped his horse and dismounted, stretching his legs. He had taken the machine gun from his shoulder to his hands, looking around in suspision. Had he heard Rapunzel closing the door or was he just ready to kill some walkers, I couldn't tell by the look on his face, because there was none. He had a total poker face on. We all drew back from the window, keeping down on the floor-level.

"What do we do? It'll get dark in two hours, we have to get back to the camp before that!" Hiccup was holding Toothless in his hands, petting him nervously. He was staring blankly at the floor, obviously freaked out by the gun the man had.

"I don't know! Should we run? Or lure him away from the main road?" Merida tried to give us options of what could be done. Rapunzel shook her head.

"It's too dangerous if one of us bluffs him from the main road as the rest get out of here!" I got to my knees, looking out of the window once more. The man was gone, his horse eating grass from a bag the man had had on the horse's saddle, behind him.

"He's not there!" I whispered, afraid that he would be close enough to hear me if I talked with a normal tune.

Then the back door clicked, and the door was opened. We all stopped moving, we stopped breathing. We all just sat there, hiding behind the counter, as the door was closed again and the footsteps were heard from inside of the pharmacy. Rapunzel closed her eyes, keeping her hands close to her chest as she seemed to do her best to not make any noise. I felt cold sweat run down my back and I felt the urge to just stand up and shoot the guy. But I couldn't do that because I didn't know for sure that he was a danger to us. Merida looked at me, a questioning look on her face as she took out her gun.

'Not yet', I mouthed to her as a sign that she should shoot just yet.

And, as everything always, shit hit the fan. Toothless, not caring about the strange man in there, got tired of Hiccup holding him in one place, broke free and ran off. Hiccup's eyes widened in shock, and he did his best to catch the cat before he would go to the man's sight from our hiding place. But, unfortunately for us, he failed, and so the cat ran. First we heard a gasp and then a loud, painful meow. Without any second thoughts, Hiccup jumped up, screaming his cat's name in despair.

"Toothless! No!" I heard the man lifting his gun, and as I got up to protect the youngest one of us, the man was pointing Hiccup with it. He looked at me, narrowing his eyes.

"How many of you are there?" he asked as he nodded towards the counter. When it seemed that we had obviously lost our advantage of hiding, both girls got up.

"Is that all? I don't want any nasty surprises." I nodded as I tried to hold Hiccup back from running to his cat that was licking his right paw. There was a knife lying on the floor and obviously it had hit Toothless, but the scar didn't seem to be that deep that it'd be necessary to risk Hiccup's life by letting him go and run to the cat, giving the man before us an opportunity to shoot my friend.

"Who are you kids?" The man never lowered his gun, and I was afraid he would shoot us before we even got the chance to answer him. However, he didn't, but as none of us answered, he grew tired of waiting.

"I asked who the fuck are you!" Merida looked straight at the man's golden-looking eyes, no feeling any more fear.

"We're just passers by. Who the fuck are you?" The man looked somehow confused by the fact that the redhead seemed to be no afraid of him.

"Passers by? Where do you come from? Whose cat is this?" Hiccup told the man that it was his, biting his lip as he was trying to hold tears back. It must have been hard for him to stand there while his cat was there, wounded, and a guy pointing a gun at us.

"Do you not know that animals can bite you? You might get infected!" the man snapped, making me shiver. Yup, he was a danger to us. I should have shot him when I had the chance! Now it was way too risky. Hiccup, who was standing very close to me, shaking, huffed in anger.

"His name is Toothless, how do you think he can bite anyone?!" he shouted, and then ran to the black cat, not caring about the gun anymore. The man just stood there, looking at Hiccup and the cat that were only a meter away from him to his right, and then slowly lowered the gun.

"Why didn't you say so?! I almost shot it!" Hiccup just picked his pet up, not saying a word, only looking at the gun that was no longer pointing at anyone else than the floor. I relaxed a bit, walking over to Hiccup, asking if the cat was okay.

"He's fine, it's just a scratch." I looked at the paw. Indeed, it didn't seem to be serious. I, however, was worried that the knife might have had viruses on it.

"Have you killed walkers with that knife?" I asked the man who had now started to chat to us without anyone answering his "friendly" sentences.

"No, I cut meat with that knife." Hiccup sighed in relief, holding the cat close to his chest. He thanked God with a silent whisper.

"Who are you?" Rapunzel asked as the man since he hadn't answered Merida's question about his identity.

"I'm just a passer by like you guys." I couldn't help but notice the tune in the man's voice. Like was lying, keeping something from us. I pushed the thought away as the man asked what's in the staff's room.

"A body", I simply answered. The man asked no more questions, but instead asked us if he could take us to his house and offer us some food.

"You look like you're starving. I have plenty of food in there, I can give some of them to you." Merida and Rapunzel looked at each other, then at me and Hiccup, and then Rapunzel said

"We have to discuss about that." The man just nodded, telling us that he would wait 10 minutes before he could leave. He walked off, and from the window I saw him sitting down next to his horse.

"What do you think? Should we?" Hiccup asked. Toothless had calmed down, and as Hiccup put him down, he showed no signs that the paw would hurt, so we let him be.

"I don't trust the man."

"I agree with Jack", Rapunzel said, "but we should just quickly go with him, grab some food with us and return to our camp." Merida and Hiccup nodded, saying that it sounded like a quite good plan. I agreed, but still couldn't help but think that the guy had a hidden agenda.

* * *

"So, you guys have been sticking around for a while?"

We were walking to the west from the city, the man riding his black horse and we walking on his right side. None of us felt fully comfortable around the weird man who just kep chatting like we would all be friends.

"You could say so." Merida looked at me, rolling her eyes. The man was a bit crazy, obviously. I thought about wheter he was alone or not. Would this be a trap, many evil men waiting for us at the house?

My concern about that turned out to be stupid, as the house that was colored beige and and had a small yard, was empty. The man, he told us his name was Pitch, left his horse to the yard, leaving the saddle and reins on. Then he told us to follow him.

As we entered the house, the first thing I noticed was the smell of baked beans. Pitch noticed me sniffing the air and told me that before he had left to investigate the city, he had put beans to the range. Our stomachs let out loud growls, making the tall, black haired man laugh.

"Hungry? You can eat with me. There are plenty of beans in the kettle." He lead us to the kitchen. The room was light, coloured in light blue.

"This isn't your house, is it?" Merida plurred out without any further thinking. Pitch didn't get mad, though, he just laughed (damn, his laugh was creepy, it made me nervous).

"No, it isn't." We all sat down to the table in silence, Pitch giving us plates and forks and serving the beans. We all ate our dishes very quickly, asking for more. I'm sure we all felt bad for doing so, but we were so hungry that we didn't give two shits about good manners then. As I was finishing my second plate, I noticed that Pitch was staring at me. I stared back, not saying a word to him. He raised his eyebrows, smiling (I'd have called it a smirk, though.)

"Why don't you take your hoodie off, boy? It's summer, and we're not in the North Pole." He was right, it was June and a pretty hot day, and my three friends were only wearing t-shirts. But still, I shook my head.

"I'm good." The strange man just hummed in response and continued eating. I suddenly got a strange feeling that I had seen the man before. The humming he had given sounded surprisingly familiar to my ears, making me want to ask him if we knew each other, but kept my mouth shut as I thought maybe, just maybe, it would be really weird to ask that from a guy who had pointed a gun at me –if we knew each other, he surely wouldn't have done so, I thought.

"We should go", Hiccup suddenly said, taking the plate he had given to Toothless away from the cat, earning an angry meow from him. I nodded, standing up.

"Yeah. Thanks for the food." Merida and Rapunzel also got up, thanking and telling that they were grateful for the food Pitch had given to us.

"It's nothing."

Pitch walked us to the front door, watching as we made our way down the yard. However, as he didn't say a goodbye to us, I knew something was off, since the man had been so friendly and chatty to us the whole time. And I was right, because basically everything was off.

The first thing that happened was the fact that Pitch shot a bullet to the sky. I think he took the gun from the doorway where he had left it when we arrived, when we had walked out of the door. Toothless jumped up in fear, his tail thick and fur up, hissing. We all turned around when we heard the gunshot, everyone's eyes the size of plates, staring at the man.

"What the fuck you think you're doing?" Rapunzel shouted. We all backed up a little bit, and I found myself wondering if we could make it out of there alive if we just ran. I soon realized that that'd be a stupid move since the man had a horse and he could easily hunt us down like that.

"You really think you can fool me around?" Pitch took a better grip from his gun, pointing it at us –once again. He looked straight at me, his gaze drilling into my soul and making me almost hypnotised. "You really think you can fool me, boy?"

"The hell are you talking about, man?!" It was Merida's turn to shout at the man. We were all very confused, yet I also felt nervous. What was the man talking about?

Pitch kept staring at me, placing his finger to the trigger. Here it comes, I thought, the end of my life. What a way to go, to be killed by a weird man that fed us beans and almost killed Toothless.

Once again there was a trail of cold sweat going down my back as Pitch laughed and looked at Hiccup, Rapunzel and Merida in turns. "You really haven't noticed, kids?"

"Noticed what?" I could hear the doubt in Hiccup's voice. If it was a doubt against Pitch or me, I wasn't sure. Pitch laughed again, shaking his head before returning to a serious-faced killer-look alike.

Never did the gun leave from having me on its sight. Pitch was seriously ready to shoot me right there and then. He frowned and looked almost disgusted. "Your friend here is infected."

* * *

**A/N:** Eheh, oops, a longer chapter with some weird events and a cliffhanger...Anyways, I wasn't about to use Pitch in this story but HEY there he is...damn.

Thank you to my beta **God's-Perfect-Sandwich**


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N: **I don't even know with the chapter title =w=

**Warning: **character death eue

* * *

_**Chapter 3 – Who's afraid of the Boogey Man?**_

Before any of them even knew it, had Pitch locked the teens into a small basement. It was empty, only one shelf with only dust in it resting against the back wall. The door and the floor had only two steps between them, so the room wasn't very cold –for the group's luck. They heard Pitch walking back and forth in the other side of the door, creating a heavy atmosphere.

* * *

**Merida's P.O.V**

The mood between us was…well, dead serious. We were all shocked from the news Pitch had dropped. Jack was leaning against the wall, spacing out, Hiccup was sitting on the floor next to him, his knees against his chest, arms around them and face down. Rapunzel was also sitting on the cold floor, just blankly staring at somewhere and drawing small circles to the floor. I was sitting on the top step of the stairs –if you could call them stairs when they only had two steps-, playing with a lock of my red hair, staring at Jack.

I couldn't help but feel unsafe around the boy now that we knew he was bitten; after Pitch had told us that and before he had taken away our weapons and bags and shoved us into the basement, pointing a gun at us, he had tucked down the collar of Jack's hoodie -even though the boy had done his best to keep Pitch's hands away-, showing the bite mark to us. It was where Jack's neck met his shoulder, and you could clearly see the mark was old and totally not done by an animal of some sort.

Suddenly, after three hours of sitting in silence, Pitch started talking, making us all jump out of our skins from surprise.

"Has he turned yet?" the man asked. I swear I saw Jack's eye twitch a bit.

"He has been with us for five days now, I don't think he's going to turn", I snapped through the door. I had gotten up to my feet, banging the door with my fist. "Now let us out, damn it!"

"Are you going to turn, Jack?" Pitch completely ignored my demand and kept on questioning Jack. They way he said his name made me shiver. The man was crazy, I could tell. Or was Jack not telling us everything?

"I've been like this for three years." Okay, he totally wasn't telling us everything. I was too afraid to turn around from the door to face the boy, I was scared that the second I would turn around, he would kill us all. I heard shifting as Hiccup moved away from Jack. "I'm not going to turn."

There was a silence. We were all breathing as lightly as we could, trying not to make any sounds at all. It was like a spell would have been put upon us, making us unable to move or speak. Suddenly Jack appeared to stand next to me on the upper step, making me back off. He slammed his hands against the door. "Fucking let us go!"

Pitch was quiet, so quiet I thought that maybe he had gone away. But then we heard him prepare his gun and I was sure the door would open in any second and Pitch would shoot us. But, instead, he said "I know you have been like that for three years."

"What?" Jack frowned and stared at the door before backing off to the very back of the room. "What do you mean?"

"You don't remember me, Jack?"

Toothless was getting nervous, sensing that there was tension in the air. Rapunzel had moved her gaze from the wall to the door, and Hiccup also had risen his face. Now all of us four were staring at the door.

"Jack, what is he talking about?" Hiccup asked, suspicion in his voice. For a brief second it felt like Hiccup was ready to stand up and attack Jack right there and then. But he didn't, he just patiently waited for Jack to answer his question.

"I don't know."

"He does", Pitch called from the other side, "he just doesn't remember."

"Jack, the fuck?" I shouted, tired of all the mysteries. Jack was infected but obviously it didn't affect him, and now a strange man was telling us that he knew Jack –how was I supposed to keep all calm and cool?

"I don't know!" Jack shouted back, tired as well. I heard Pitch chuckle behind the door.

"Now now, children, calm down."

I practically attacked the door. I just snapped. I kicked and slammed the poor door, shouting words I don't want to repeat, and telling Pitch to let us out.

"Merida", Rapunzel whispered weakly, "please." It made me stop, the tune of Rapunzel's voice. I panted as I sat down in the middle of the small room we were in, rubbing my temples and trying to make sense out of all this. Pitch started laughing and then we heard him drag a chair on the floor as he settled himself down.

And then he told us everything. Everything about the day the plane had brought the infected to Europe. Everything about how he had sat in that very same plane Jack and the infected had been in. He told us that he had seen Jack getting knocked over after the panic had spread in the airport –and how he had gotten bit.

"You didn't notice the bite at first, did you?"

"No", Jack mumbled. I didn't even hear it at first. I was so shocked. I couldn't believe Pitch had been there too. It was unbelievable (what a small world, huh?)

"You know, I didn't recognize you at first. Today, I mean. Because you have grown up a bit. And you look tired." I could imagine Pitch smirking a twisted smirk as he spoke. "But then, in the middle of our dinner, I remembered. Surprised you aren't dead."

Jack didn't say anything at first. He just slowly, very slowly, sat down to the floor, closing his eyes. He was paler than he usually was which made him look like a ghost.

Me, Rapunzel and Hiccup were too confused to say anything. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who wanted to get the fuck away from everything -I knew that we couldn't do that, but a woman can dream, right? Pitch knocked at the door.

"Jack."

"What?" Jack snapped, his eyes still closed. He was gripping the fabric of his hoodie in his hands so tightly his knuckles had turned white.

"I saw that little girl who was with you."

The speed of Jack was unhuman. In just brief seconds he had opened his eyes, jumped up from the ground and ran to the door –knocking me over because I was sitting in the middle of the floor-, hitting the white piece of wood with all his strength, cursing like a sailor. And Pitch just laughed like a maniac that whole time Jack tried to get through the door. But soon the anger turned to shock and longing, and Jack started to cry –or it was just tears running down his cheeks as his fists became weaker and weaker, and finally the banging was only a light knock; he didn't really sob or really _cry_ or anything like that.

"I'll deal with you later", Pitch told us and we heard him walk away. Jack just banged his forehead against the door, unable to shout after the man. Hiccup stood up and walked to Jack, placing a hand to his shoulder.

"Jack-"

"Don't." Jack's response was short and quick, like a whip cutting the air in half. Hiccup bit his lip and turned to me and Rapunzel, eyes asking for help from us. Rapunzel also stood up, but unlike Hiccup, he didn't walk to Jack. She kept her distance as she told us the obvious; we had to get out.

Rapunzel joined me to sit in the middle of the floor, waving Hiccup and Jack to come also. Hiccup had a hard time dragging Jack from the door to us, but eventually we were all sitting in a small circle.

"Okay, so we need to get the heck away from here or we'll get killed", Rapunzel whispered, looking at each of us in our eyes, keeping her voice down in the fear that Pitch could hear –how could we know if he was standing behind the door?

"But how? He has our weapons." It was Hiccup's turn to whisper. The boy was clearly nervous, and so was his cat. "We can't leave them."

"You're right. We have to split in two, I think", I said. I suddenly had come up with a plan, and I was eager to share it with the others.

"You have an idea, Merida?" the blonde girl asked, looking at me curiously. I nodded.

"Hiccup and Jack", I said and looked at the boys with a serious face, "you two will go look for our weapons while me and Rapunzel will make sure Pitch won't notice us. Then we grab our weapons and pack bags, kill Pitch and-"

"But Pitch knows something about my sister!" Jack suddenly snapped, but luckily managed to keep his voice down, "We can't kill him before he tells me what he saw at the airport!"

"-and we run away. What does that sound like? I'm assuming it's already dark outside, so we should be able to get away easily, in case there are zombies or other people out there." I ignored Jack's demand for a reason; we had to kill the man. Yes, I knew that Jack was shocked and that he wanted to know what happened to her sister, and that he wanted to spare Pitch in the hope that the man could share his memories from the airport with him, but that would be a huge risk. We all had to get away without any major injuries, so Pitch couldn't be left alive.

"Good. But how are we going to get out of _here_?" Rapunzel asked, spreading out her arms. Hiccup chuckled and then took out a pocket knife from the inside of his dark green vest made of thin fabric, telling us that Pitch hadn't even noticed the knife when he had taken away our guns and bows and Jack's bat.

"Let's try to pick that lock." Jack looked at Hiccup, but made no more pleases about that we should spare Pitch. I felt kind of bad for him, I understood how he felt –I would have asked the others to keep the man alive if he would know something about my family- but we were in no place to take any risks.

Hiccup looked at the knife he was holding for some moments, sliding his finger over it. I was getting rather excited at that point. Maybe this could work! Maybe we could get out without any bigger damage. But I tried to keep my mind under control; first we had to actually get out, only then I could celebrate.

Hiccup walked to the door, placing his knife inside the lock and wiggling it. It took him some minutes before we heard a silent click and the door opened with a creak –we all held our breaths to listen if Pitch would appear out of nowhere and shoot us. Nothing happened, so we bent down and Hiccup nodded at Jack and pointed at the stairs that led upstairs.

"We should look there first", he whispered. They slowly made their way to the stairs, heads down and Hiccup tightly keeping the knife in his hands, close to his chest. Toothless was right on their heels, sneaking like a true cat. Me and Rapunzel watched them go before slowly moving to the living room –only to see the back of Pitch's head.

The man was sitting on a couch, and doing something I wasn't sure of what it was. He had his gun resting against the arm of the couch, only a meter away from me (I was squatting at the doorway and Rapunzel was right behind me), and I couldn't help but wonder if I could have the time to take the gun. And then I considered if I should then sneak away or should I just kill Pitch right away. I decided that it'd be safer to kill the man, and I looked at Rapunzel to message her about my plan. Rapunzel looked nervous but didn't stop me, so I reached out my hand for the gun, and just when I got a hold of it, the stairs in the hallway behind us gave a creak as Hiccup and Jack came back down.

Shit hit the fan, really. Pitch heard the creak and immediately took his gun, picking it up and almost making me fall over as I had a hold of it, too. The black haired man looked at me for brief seconds before pointing the gun at me, and I swear I would have died if Rapunzel hadn't picked up a vase and thrown it at Pitch, making the man stumble and shoot at the ceiling. I hurried up and me and Rapunzel ran to the front door with Jack and Hiccup who had stood in the living room's doorway, staring at the act before them in shock. Jack opened the door –thank God it wasn't locked- and we ran outside, Hiccup quickly giving us our weapons and handing Rapunzel the pack bag the medicine were in, as we ran into the woods. We heard Pitch cursing when we reached the border of the forest, and a gunshot as the man tried to shoot at us but being unable to hit anyone as it was so dark already. He did come after us, however, and I saw the beam of the flashlight bounce up and down on the trees when that damn maniac ran after us.

We all knew that we couldn't escape by running, so we separated and hid behind trees, rocks, whatever we could find, only meters away from each other. My heart was beating like it would break off from my chest any minute, but I tried my best not to breathe too heavily. I heard Pitch's footsteps getting closer and closer and I found myself wondering who would die; it would either be Pitch or then –what a horrible thought- one of us.

When Pitch's flashlight hit the tree next to me it felt like my life would flash before my eyes any minute. I just waited patiently for the gunshot to be heard and someone scream in pain or then just the sound of someone collapsing to the ground, dead as a rock. I saw Jack, who was hiding behind a tree that was not so far way from my hiding spot, and for a moment I hoped that the boy would never have appeared into our lives –but that thought lasted for only that one, short moment, because I soon told myself that Jack was a part of our group now, whether he was bitten or not, and that couldn't be changed.

As my thoughts were running around Jack, Pitch had walked to stand in front of Jack's tree, and I only noticed it when Jack pressed himself closer to the tree, and if it wasn't so dark I could have sworn that he closed his eyes. Pitch seemed to know that we were there, because he placed his finger to the trigger and tensed up. But just before anything happened, before any of us four got shot, a zombie approached –and attacked Pitch before the man could react.

I wasn't sure if my heart had been beating so loudly in my ears that I hadn't heard the zombie or what was it, but I thanked the lord for sending that certain zombie to attack that certain man. I heard Rapunzel yell "run" and saw her silhouette disappear deeper into the forest, Jack following her. Hiccup and Toothless, who had been hiding behind a huge rock that was next to the zombie-Pitch –ball of flesh, came out, ran to me and Hiccup pulled me up from the ground. I was so shocked that I didn't even realize it before Hiccup's hand took a hold of mine.

While Rapunzel and Jack had fled, and before Hiccup had come to me, I had been just staring at Pitch. When the zombie had attacked him, he had gotten so surprised that he had had no time to react when his gun slipped from his hands, landing on the ground, out of his reach. Now the zombie was trying to eat him and Pitch tried his best to keep the creature from horror movies away from getting too close. Pitch was lying on the ground, the walker on top of him, its long, blonde and rotten hair tickling his face, and when he saw Hiccup and me he looked at us, hope in his eyes –he hoped that we would save him.

But we didn't.

We ran, we ran like the forest was on fire. When me and the boy with freckles finally reached the other two teens, we heard Pitch's scream as the man's arms gave up and the zombie made its way to get in touch with the skin. Rapunzel was gripping her gun, looking around.

"We should keep going, that noise is like an invitation to the walkers." We all agreed, making our way out of the forest to the road. Jack took his map out, quickly turning on the flashlight he had had with him –it was the only one our group had- and stared at the map.

"Well?" I asked. I was nervous, scared of that more walkers could appear any moment.

"That way", Jack said and pointed to the West, "our camp is that way."

We walked in silence, all of us aware of the fact that we had almost died. Never before had I been so happy to see a zombie attack someone. It felt like a miracle.

The silence broke when I heard a gun being loaded and looked at Hiccup. He had Pitch's gun in his hands, staring at the bullets.

"Damn. Only five left."

"When did you get that?" I asked. I had no memory of Hiccup picking up the gun, but yet, there it was. Hiccup shrugged and tossed the gun to his right shoulder, left shoulder being taken by his bow. My eyes caught at the amount of arrows he had –it wasn't many. I noticed that Jack's, Rapunzel's and mine were also quite small.

"What happened to the arrows? We had more than this!" I pointed out, stopping in the middle of the road, taking my arrows out. Four. Rapunzel and Hiccup had six. Jack had three.

"That's all we got", Jack said, "Pitch had snapped most of them in two." Shit, I thought.

"Why didn't you get Pitch's flashlight?" the boy then asked Hiccup as we continued to walk down the road, Jack shaking the flashlight we had in his hand, "a new one would be quite great to get."

"It was on his belt."

"Oh."

"Did you get the walkie-talkies?" I asked. Hiccup nodded an gave me the other one of the two radiotelephones, keeping the other one on his belt.

"We have to get back to the camp", Rapunzel said, taking the map and flashlight from Jack, studying the map as she firmly walked forward.

Me and Hiccup nodded, but Jack shook his head. "We have to get to Russia."

"You still want to get to that man?" Hiccup asked, raising the other one of his eyebrows. I had thought the same. I mean, Russia was far away, we couldn't get there just like that, easily. It would take time and a huge effort to get there. And we didn't even know what the situation with the walkers was in East Europe.

"I'm immune to the bites", Jack said weakly, staring at the ground as we finally arrived to our camp, "maybe he can take advantage of that."

"Jack's right", Rapunzel noted. She explained that if the man in Moscow could really do something about the infections, we should at least go give it a try. Maybe the man could use Jack's blood or something, she said, and trust me when I tell you, Rapunzel is pretty good at explaining and convincing people, so I found myself thinking that maybe it would work. Maybe.

* * *

**Hiccup's P.O.V**

It had been three hours after we had escaped the forest and arrived to our camp when Jack climbed to one of the many roofs of the area our camp was in.

You see, we had all went to "bed" when we had come, all of us falling asleep rather quickly –or, so I had thought. Through my sleep I could hear Jack shifting in his bed –you can't really call our places of sleep _beds_, but you know what I mean-, being unable to sleep. What completely woke me up was Jack getting up and walking out into the night. I soon got up too, checking if the girls were awake or not. They were both in deep sleep, so I decided to follow Jack alone –not even Toothless came with me (poor cat was very tired). It was around midnight and the sky was clear so I didn't even need my flashlight to see Jack climbing old latters to a nearby house's roof. I saw him sit down, back towards me. I followed him, making my way up.

"Hey." Jack turned to look at me as I sat down next to him. Then he turned his eyes back to the sky.

"Hey."

"Couldn't sleep?"

"Not really." I watched Jack from the corner of my eye. He was staring at the stars and the moon so intensely it almost looked like he was sleeping with his eyes open.

"You alright, Jack?"

"I'm thinking about Pitch."

I bit my lip, unsure of how I should answer. I knew that Jack had wanted to hear what Pitch knew about his sister, but now the man was dead and Jack didn't know any more than before this day. I let out a shaky breath as I still wondered what I should say to the older boy.

Jack leaned back so that he was now lying on his back, and moved his hands to the back of his head. I looked at him for brief moments. He seemed to be quite calm compared to all the things that had happened today; a man, who claimed that he knew Jack, had tried to kill us and then got killed by a walker.

I followed Jack to lie on my back as I felt stupid to be the only one sitting. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Jack looked at me.

"For your sister."

I heard Jack swallow before he responded. "She's okay."

I felt my heart skip a few beats. Jack sounded so confident it was actually quite sad. But, on the other hand, what did I know? No one could tell if the girl was alive or not.

"How did you react when you noticed you were bitten?" The words just slipped from my mouth before I thought about it.

"First I was confused", Jack said, not seeming to mind my off question, "then I thought about killing myself." I shivered. I could only imagine how Jack had felt when he had seen the mark. "But then I didn't. I guess I chickened out."

"And when you didn't turn you realized you're immune?"

"Yeah."

We were silent for a moment, both of us getting lost in our thoughts, before I continued with the questions.

"Are you sure about the whole way to Moscow?" I tried to change the subject, I felt like this was getting way too awkward and miserable.

"Yeah." Jack let out a long sigh before he turned his gaze from me to the silhouette of the city that was opening some kilometers away on our right. "I have to know if he can actually do something with this", he touched the spot of his skin the bite mark was on, "to stop this fucking infection from spreading."

"Okay. How are we going to get there?" I gulped and thought about my prosthetic leg. It wouldn't be easy to walk all the way to Russia with it, I would need several breaks a day, and that would slow us down.

"By feet. If we get lucky the East isn't that infected and there will be more living people than here", Jack suddenly sat up and looked at me, his eyes filled with hope and dreams, "and maybe we'll find a car that works. It would help."

I pushed myself up so that I was leaning to my elbows. The idea of sitting in a car felt surprisingly good –you didn't see that many cars around anymore; the cars that had been left behind by escaping people were either very rusty or then out of gas.

"Do you even know how to drive?" I asked, trying to lighten up the mood with joking. Jack laughed and playfully hit my thigh with his fist.

"I will learn."

"Merida wants to drive, too, I'm sure of it."

"She won't watch out for walkers, will she?"

"I doubt it." We both laughed, imagining Merida running over the living dead with a car. It sounded hilarious.

Once we were done chuckling, me and Jack stared at each other for a long while. I got lost in his blue eyes, suddenly remembering the evening Jack had found me –or however you should call a moment of a stranger approaching me. I wasn't sure if the decision of letting him come with me had been a good one or a bad one –it was technically his fault that Pitch had tried to kill us-, but I felt like it didn't matter anymore. The boy was there, and that couldn't be changed. I even found myself hoping that nothing bad would happen; I just hoped that we would reach Moscow and find the man and figure out a way to kill the virus.

"Hey Jack?" I asked, breaking the silence that had landed between us.

"Hm?" Jack blinked a few times to get his mind back to the moment.

"What if it doesn't work?" I stared intensely at Jack's eyes to see what he was thinking, "What if the man won't be able to find a way to stop the virus?"

Jack looked back at me, also seeming to try figure out my thoughts. I was happy that he couldn't do so, though, because I had a huge amount of suspicion in my mind. Even though I kept hoping that we would find the Russian man and that he would be able to use Jack's immunity to the bites to stop the virus and then the world would be saved, this little voice inside my head was still telling me that something would go wrong.

Even though Jack couldn't read minds, he seemed to notice how nervous I was about all this; he patted my hand lightly a couple of times, smiling a brave smile.

"It will work." And then his hand just stopped to rest on top of mine, spreading a calm and confident feeling all over my body.

* * *

**A/N: **When I said "character death", you thought that someone from The Big Four would die, didn't you? Ehehe sorry, I had to.

Anyways, did I just feed Pitch to a zombie? Oops uwu

I'm doing my best to use everyone's P.O.V equally, but as you can see, it's not going so well...I'm sorry ok Q_Q

**Thank you** for all the reviews, favs and follows, glad to see this fic isn't a total flop lmao~

**EDIT: **Because of chapter 4, I changed this chapter a bit (a thing with Jack's hair) [thank you to **pinemartin.k **for helping me eheh].


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Woah sorry it took me so long to update! This chapter was a pain in the ass plus my inspiration focused on the other fics I'm working on...But anyways, hope you enjoy this chapter!

**P.S **I'd like to thank TellTale Games' _The Walking Dead S2 EP2: A House Divided _for inspiring me with this huehue

* * *

_**Chapter 4 – Lost in memories**_

**Jack's P.O.V**

We hadn't really decided whether we would go to Russia or not, but we did agree that we should leave the city we were currently in. Food was running low and so were the medicines, and so we didn't see any reason to stay –as we (and other people) had robbed the food stores and the pharmacy so well that nothing was left. So it was only obvious that we had to move.

First we got into a fight about where we should go. I, of course, mentioned Russia, and so did Rapunzel. Merida pointed out that it was too far away, but didn't say any other options, so…And Hiccup didn't say anything, but I thought that he was with me about going to Russia –I judged so from the conversation we had had the other night, on the roof.

We decided that we would move towards the East, but if it would seem like we couldn't make it all the way to Moscow, we wouldn't go there.

I think everyone was happy with that agreement, because as we packed our stuff (aka some food, medicine, weapons and the little amount of spare clothes we had found, not to mention the flashlight and the walkie-talkies) and left our camp behind, none of us complained about the situation of us walking down the road to god-knows-where.

And of course we got in trouble. Like, what would be more awesome than escaping a maniac man and then running into a whole bunch of walkers?

* * *

It all started when we packed our stuff and left our camp. I had drawn a route to the map so that we would somewhat know where to head, and by that map we headed towards the border of Germany and Poland –the border wasn't all that far as we were in the south of Germany, already near the border. We had been walking down the road for hours (I think we were already quite near the border) when Hiccup asked for a break, and of course we almost immediately stopped to rest, taking Hiccup's leg into account.

So, we were sitting beside the road, each of us taking small sips from our water bottles. It was a hot day, really hot, so we had the need for water very often –so often that now that we had stopped to rest, I noticed that my bottle was almost empty. And as I mentioned about it to the others, they said that they had the same problem: we had been drinking too much too often, and now we were running out of water.

"There's a river nearby", I said as I looked at the map I had taken out from my pocket, "we should go fill our bottles."

"As long as it's not so far. I don't think we should wander off from our route", Rapunzel pointed out as she stood up, having me following her. Merida nodded and helped Hiccup up as the boy sighed in annoyance –he didn't want to walk back and forth. I think the heat was making his leg hurt even more.

"You can stay here and wait for us?" I suggested, meaning that me and Rapunzel could go to the river and Merida could wait on the road with Hiccup, but the brunette shook his head.

"No way. What if you get in trouble?" I wanted to say that we would get in more trouble if we would later have the need to run and Hiccup wouldn't be able to do so because of the pain in his leg, but instead I just shrugged and let him and Merida follow me and the blonde girl as we headed off the road, into the forest and towards the river.

And it wasn't that far, really. It only took us about ten minutes until I saw the water glitter in the distance. I sighed in relief, happy that soon we would be able to continue towards the East. I didn't know what time it was, but it was that late already that the sun was going down –don't get me wrong, I knew it would still be sunny for a few hours, but the point is that we wouldn't get all that far in just a few hours and that wandering off the route didn't help at all.

"Let's hurry", Merida said as we reached the river and she bent down to the water, placing her bottle into the water, watching it fill in. We followed her lead and filled up our bottles –each of us had two of them.

"Do you think we have the time to boil these?" Rapunzel asked, taking a look at the condition of the river. The water was clear, but you know: if there's a risk that you can get infected by drinking un-boiled water, you shouldn't take it.

Hiccup bit his lip as he tried to stop Toothless from getting too near the water –he was either scared that the cat would be dragged within the flow or that it would drink from the river, I wasn't sure- and shrugged. "Well we _should_ boil it…" he mumbled and then picked his black cat up, looking at me. "What do you think?"

"It'll only take a few minutes", I replied and took a small kettle from my backpack. We had found it from the suburb which's houses we had searched through a few days back. It was so small that we would have to boil the water in two rounds, and even if I knew it would only take those few minutes, I was worried: we didn't have a blowtorch or anything, so we would have to gather some wood and start a fire.

"We really need that blowtorch", Merida sighed as she gave me some sticks and dry leaves for starting the fire. If I may say, I'm a pro with matches, so it only took me a single one to get the fire to get to live. I poured the water from some of the bottles to the kettle and held it above the fire, waiting for the water to start boiling. Hiccup sat down next to me, taking advantage of the long break to rest his leg. Merida and Rapunzel were standing, saying that they needed to keep the blood running in their legs, and I understood it: too much sitting wouldn't do any good, so after a little while I even told Hiccup to stand up and stretch his leg around. He obeyed, but added a "I can take care of myself" with a silent, annoyed mumble.

_This _is when everything went to hell. First we heard walkers' growling in the distance, and we got in a hurry: the first water kettle was ready now, and I had poured the water back into the bottles, but the second one wasn't boiling yet.

"Jack, we need to hurry", Merida said, taking out her bow already. Toothless had tensed next to Hiccup, and the brunette tried to calm the cat down while he helped me to move the water from the kettle to the bottles –it never boiled properly, but we didn't have time for that now. I quickly stuffed the kettle and the bottles to the backpack -just in time for the first walker to appear to our sight. It was walking next to the river, so we thought that we would easily go to the forest and back to the road –only to see more walkers as we were about to head into the woods.

"This way", I said and started to move along the river, away from the walkers that were now a huge group, dangerously close to us. We ran some hundred meters along the river before we saw more walkers –they were coming towards us. We were trapped, and Rapunzel cursed as she stepped to the river –it wasn't all that deep, only about to our waists at the deepest spot. We followed Rapunzel's lead across the river, Toothless meowing loudly in Hiccup's hold.

"Where to now?" the brunette asked once we were on land again. I looked back –the zombies were there, longing after us with loud noises. I cursed silently inside my head: we were in big trouble because now we would have to go to the exactly different direction than what we had planned.

Just when I was about to answer that we would have to go along the river so that we wouldn't get lost or anything, I heard a walker approaching from our right. "Are you fucking kidding me?" I asked the dead woman as she came closer, a few more following right behind her. Where did all those things come from, out of the sudden?

Merida rose her bow and tensed up, ready to shoot an arrow, but Rapunzel stopped her. "We can't waste arrows", she pointed out and Merida realized it too –or at least I think so, because the redhead made no objections whatsoever; she just nodded and put her bow down, pointing towards the forest.

"Well I guess we have to go that way", she said and looked to our left –there was a zombie on the ground, desperately trying to drag its way towards us with its hands (it had no legs), and even if a walker like that wasn't a big danger or anything, we decided not to risk it: if there was one zombie, there would be more (or at least it seemed like it since the walkers were coming from almost every direction…)

We ran into the woods, not even sure where we would end up to –I didn't have the time to look at my map and check where we were heading to. I heard the walkers come after us and hoped that this was all a bad dream: couldn't we even get a break from bad luck?

* * *

**Rapunzel's P.O.V**

I'm not quite sure what happened.

First we were all together, as a group, but the next thing I know is that me and Merida got surrounded by walkers, and Hiccup and Jack were nowhere to be seen.

I panicked, okay? I thought that maybe Hiccup's leg had hurt so much from all the running that he had fallen and Jack had stopped to help him up and…and…

I never finished the thought because Merida told me to snap out of it and help her. The walkers were getting closer and with a short-distance our bows were not the best weapons to choose. We had to waste bullets and use Pitch's gun (Hiccup had given it to me) to hit the walkers with it.

It took us a long time before every walker was either dead (or, you know) or not able to attack anymore, but eventually me and Merida were panting in exhaustion, surrounded by bodies, and I finally had the time to worry about the boys. They had their bows and pistols (plus of course Hiccup's knife), but as the mother hen I sometimes am, I looked at Merida with wide eyes, panic hearable from my voice as I asked if she had seen them.

"No, I didn't see where they went", she answered me, biting her lip, "We have to go look for them!" Well, it was obvious. Me and my Scottish company headed back to where we had come from, silently calling out the boys' names –silently, because we were afraid more walkers would appear if we would be too loud- but no one answered us. Anxiety rose between us as the only thing we saw was trees, trees and trees.

"No no no no", Merida breathed out finally as we stopped walking for a moment, "this can't be happening!"

"We need to find them!" I nearly cried out, fighting off the tears from my eyes. This couldn't be true, I didn't want it to be. I knew something like this would happen one day; us getting separated and panic slowly rising from my heart.

"Hiccup!" Merida yelled from the top of her lungs, not seeming to much care about walkers anymore. I narrowed my eyes at first, but then joined her.

"Jack! Where are you?!" I shouted, cupping my hands around my mouth to make my voice be more hearable.

No answers whatsoever. The only thing I heard was just birds and distant growling. I looked at Merida, who had sat down to the ground, her face hidden into her hands.

"Shit…What do we do?" she mumbled and then rose her gaze to me. I gave her a hopeless shrug.

"I have no idea. We can't just go running around the forest, we might get lost…"

"What about the walkie-talkie?" Merida then asked, sudden hope in her eyes. I mentally hit myself –why hadn't I remembered it? I joined the redhead girl to the ground and took out my walkie-talkie, putting it on.

"Hiccup..?" I slowly said at the radiophone, hoping to get an answer. The thing only gave me white noise and I had to hit it a bit with my hand. "Don't you dare die on me!" I commanded the walkie-talkie, turning the stations to get it working. "Hiccup?" I asked again, and this time the radiophone I was holding gave me no white noise, but silence instead. I sighed and closed my eyes.

"This isn't working", I swallowed and heard Merida lean back to a tree with a silent _thump_.

"What are we going to do?"

"We should wait for this to start working", I replied and stared at the walkie-talkie intensely, as if my glare would have made it work. Merida sighed and stroked her bow.

"We're in big trouble."

"Yes we are."

There was a long silence between us before Merida whispered a question so quiet I only barely heard her. "Do you think they're still alive?"

I swallowed again and licked my lips. My mouth felt dry and I didn't know what to say. _Of course they are _was obviously what I wanted to say, but I didn't get any words to leave my mouth. It felt like nothing was sure –there seemed to be a lot of walkers in the forest, so there was a possibility that Jack and Hiccup were either dead or bitten or trapped somewhere. I wondered if Jack's immunity would help at all; being immune to bites wouldn't be much of a help if his organs would be ripped off.

"I'm sure they're fine", I finally managed to answer after long minutes of another dead silence. "Let's just wait."

* * *

**Hiccup's P.O.V**

"It isn't working", Jack cursed and tossed the walkie-talkie to me. "Fuck!"

I tried my luck. Only white noise and then silence.

Me and Jack were sitting in a small stock-like house we had found just in time to escape from the walkers. I hadn't been sure where Rapunzel and Merida were, but I hadn't gotten much time to think about them as I had to break the lock with my knife and shove us inside, moving a shelf to block the door. The walkers had been banging the door for some minutes, but now it was quiet –but we still didn't dare to leave.

"What do we do?" I asked. Jack was quiet, leaning to the wall and staring blankly at the door. "Jack?" I asked again as I didn't get an answer in some minutes, but instead of answering me, Jack just moved his blue eyes to me, shaking his head. I looked down at Toothless who was sitting on my lap, also staring at the door.

"We'll wait", I then answered myself and placed the radiophone to the floor. We shouldn't just go out there to get killed by zombies, not now that we had a somehow safe place to stay in, I thought to myself and closed my eyes.

I didn't recall what had happened. We had ran away from the walkers, and at some point they had gotten between me and Jack and Merida and Rapunzel, and so we had separated, me and Jack finding this old house and Rapunzel and Merida going to God-knows-where. I hoped that they were okay, and thanked that little piece of luck we had for them having the other walkie-talkie. It would have been a dead serious situation if both radiophones were either at us or at them.

My thoughts from whether or not bad things would have happened if Jack and I wouldn't have found this old house from the middle of the woods were cut off as Jack started talking.

"You know, we might be stuck in here for hours", he started, "so I started wondering that I don't really know anything about you." Jack looked at me, waiting for me to start. I was quiet for a while, unsure what I should tell him –if I should tell anything at all: was this really the situation for telling the story of my life? However, I decided to give it a try.

"Well, uh…" I started, closing my eyes as I drew myself back to the time before the infections, "I used to live with my dad in a small apartment we had rented. My mom died in a diving accident when I was about ten years old." I had to keep a pause at that point, fighting off tears. Even though I was over my mother's death, talking about her still hurt and brought back memories from when she had shown me so much love and care. "I miss her…" I blurted out, not remembering where I was. I heard Jack's quiet 'mhm'.

We had a short silence after that sentence: me trying to figure out what to say to return to the subject, and Jack probably giving me the space to think about the past. Finally he asked "Did you have any other friends than Merida and Rapunzel?"

I shook my head. "Wasn't the most popular kid in school."

"You got bullied?"

"Sometimes, but not that often that it would've made me miserable."

Jack stood up, walked to me and then sat back down. "Had any girlfriends?" he grinned, obviously trying not to talk about my past with the bullies –and I didn't mind. Even if I had said that the bullying hadn't bothered me that much –and it hadn't, really- I still didn't want to remember all the times I got shoved against a wall or something.

"Well I used to like one girl, but she moved away before I managed to tell her about my feelings."

"Do you know how she's doing?"

"No", I said and felt a strange feeling in my heart. Was it sadness? I hadn't been thinking about my crush for years after she had moved away, so why I suddenly had the urge to call her –like that would have been possible those days- and ask her how she was doing? I blinked a few times and then looked at Jack –who was sitting surprisingly close.

"What about you? How was your life before all this?"

"Well it used to be just me and my sister. Our mom passed away because of cancer four years ago. No idea what happened to my dad, he was gone when I turned two. Before the infections I was supposed to go visit my aunt in France with my sister but…you know."

"The walkers."

"Yeah."

I nodded and then looked at Jack's snow white hair. "Is that your natural color?"

Jack shook his head and shrugged. "It used to be brown but I dyed it white just before the trip to Europe…I think the bite has stopped my hair from growing because it should be brown again by now."

"What about your sister?" I asked and then mentally hit myself multiple times for asking such thing. Jack didn't seem to mind, though –he smiled and then rested his head to my shoulder, his whole body leaning to me.

"She is the most beautiful thing…So much like me", he said and kept a pause. I let him take his time before he continued, "I wonder what she looks like now…"

Suddenly Jack sniffed and his body started to shake, and I immediately knew he was trying his best to hold back a cry. I swung my arm around his shoulder, pulling him closer and whispering comforting things such as 'It's okay Jack, just let it all out' and 'It's going to be fine' to him. He then stopped holding back and cried like a baby instead –I felt the fabric of my shirt and vet get wet as Jack's tears ran down his face.

"I miss her so much. She was the only thing I had", he bawled, and I had a hard time to understand what he was saying because of all the sniffs he had between words. "I hope she's okay."

I didn't say anything, I just let him cry while I gently stroked his shoulder with my hand. After some minutes he seemed to calm down a bit: he stopped crying and just breathed heavily. "She turned 13 last week, you know."

"Huh. A big girl already", was all I managed to say. I could only imagine what Jack felt like –the girl had been at the age of ten at the time the infections had spread, so of course her big brother was worried. Especially now that he knew Pitch had seen her at the airport.

"You know, Hiccup", Jack whispered, his voice hoarse from the crying, "I'm worried I'll lose you guys, too."

"Don't worry", I mumbled back and moved my hand from the older male's shoulder to his head, patting his soft hair, "you're not going to. I prom-"

"_Hiccup?" _I suddenly heard from the walkie-talkie that was next to me. I hurriedly picked it up.

"Rapunzel! Are you guys okay?" I heard a relieved sigh as the blonde girl at the other end now knew we were alive.

"_We're fine. Where are you?"_

"We found an old stock-like house. We've been hiding here.", I told the girl as I continued to stroke Jack's locks of hair –surprisingly enough for me, the boy never moved away from my shoulder, even though Rapunzel had contacted us.

I gave Rapunzel and Merida the direction where I thought we were at from the river, and then heard another relieved sigh. _"We'll come there. Are you guys okay?"_

I looked at Jack's head that was resting on my shoulder and then at Toothless who was still on my lap, looking at the walkie-talkie curiously. "We're fine."

Rapunzel seemed to cry when she answered _"Thank God."_

* * *

**A/N: **I have the feeling that at some point I said Jack's hair is brown? Well yeah ta-dah I changed my mind ehehe i'msosorryokay

Anyways I wanted to show Jack's vulnerable side since they're all acting like badass, so yeah, I made him cry :P Ooops.

See you in the next chap! I think there will be a new character coming to picture soon ;)


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